A thumbs up or 'Like' icon at the Facebook main campus in Menlo Park, California, May 15, 2012. (Getty Images)

(Newser)
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GM unfriended Facebook this week, saying that advertising there didn't work. But rival Ford says there's another explanation: GM must be doing it wrong. "It's all about execution," Ford said in a Tweet spotted by the Huffington Post. "Our Facebook ads are effective when strategically combined with engaging content & innovation." In an interview with Forbes, a Ford VP said the company was actually increasing its Facebook advertising, calling it a "growing and critical part of our media mix."

"You won't make the right choices if you view Facebook as an advertising network," he explained. "You can’t just pick up advertising that would run somewhere else and put it on Facebook as an ad banner." Another Ford marketing source said GM's decision was "odd" given how young and potentially powerful Facebook is. "Wouldn't you just say to Facebook, 'We're not going to spend as much … in order to earn our business, can we come up with something more clever?'"

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wwwonderer

May 17, 2012 9:31 AM CDT

"Our Facebook ads are effective when strategically combined with engaging content & innovation." Then, Ford, it is not your advertising that's effective. It is your (Facebook) content and "innovation", whatever that means, that people are driven to by advertising. The question really is would that same content be just as effective on Ford's own web site? Would Ford's strategy work on another social network like Pinterest or FourSquare or MySpace or AOL? The Facebook ecosystem is the real question.